


Qliphoth In Red

by UnlimitedLostWorks



Category: Fate/Apocrypha, Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Tsukihime
Genre: Body Modification, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 01:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18378443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnlimitedLostWorks/pseuds/UnlimitedLostWorks
Summary: Avicebron hates humans, but loves humanity. The Dead Apostle shares knowledge with him, but so too does he ask him another question--"Are you a human, or a monster?"





	Qliphoth In Red

That man is surely something that cannot be called “human”, the philosopher thinks. Solomon Ibn Gabirol is a man who considers himself well-versed in the ugliness of humans, but there is nothing of that ugliness in the man he has found, draped across his workstation as if he is not intruding on another’s home. There is something indescribably different, something that he can understand, but can not put in words-- he is not entirely sure whether he is repulsed, or if he is entranced. He does not ask who he is, or why he has broken into his home. No, what he asks is simple.

“What are you?”

The man smiles as if he was expecting the question, and the candlelight catches on the pointed fangs. At that moment, Avicebron understands why this man feels so purely inhuman-- he simply isn’t one. The shape may be mostly the same, but the soul is different, stained by the blood of something ancient, something alien. One of the Vampiric species, the class of bloodsuckers. A Dead Apostle, most likely, by the way his eyes gleam a mesmerizing red in the low light.

“A scholar, like you. I heard about the Magecraft you’re developing, so I came to see.”

It’s not what he meant when he asked, but it’s an answer all the same. It’s said simply, as casually as a greeting or a momentary goodbye. As if there is nothing odd about such a thing. He knows he should distrust this man, but--

\--It’s true. That’s all there is to it. He should be more doubting, but there is no room for such things in his voice. This man is here simply out of curiosity.

“I wonder if you’re scared. They call you “Avicebron”, no? A right-thinking philosopher… surely, you should hate a creature such as me.”

Gabirol’s face is emotionless, as still as the mask that covers it. He wonders if the other man can see it anyway.

“Of course not. Fear is irrational, when confronted with an oddity. No, I’m only as curious as you are.”

It’s a little gratifying, perhaps, that the rest of the magical world is at least aware of his research. The great Mystery that he seeks is the perfected, primordial man-- but there is no discipline in which his path can be found. So-- a new theory must be devised, if what he dreams of is to be realised. This undertaking alone is a life’s work in and of itself, beginning with the compiling of the accumulated thaumaturgical knowledge of his people, the mysticism traced back to the very pages of the Torah. Taking every secret that has been divined, working them all into a single, unitary framework-- it is testing the very limits of his magical understanding.

“Hm… is that so, ‘Avicebron’? I’m impressed. Humans are flawed in their understanding of such things, inclined to fear what they don’t know. But you… I wonder, are you a scholar or a monster?”

The way he speaks makes the poet’s spine shudder with something between revulsion and anticipation. The words he say are absurd, and yet-- he understands what he is asking.

“Does it matter?”

The vampire laughs then, the sound more spirited than one might expect from the undead.

“Good answer. Well, if such an interesting person is creating something new, I’d like to be involved. I’ve been alive… well, I’ve existed for a long time. Perhaps what I know can be applied to your dream, hm?”

Avicebron has a feeling he’s not talking about the theory. Still, he puts his hand out, skin pale, and his own hand, swathed in cloth to hide the rot, grasps it all the same.

 

\---

 

And so the vampire begins to haunt his workshop like a pale spectre, sleeping there in the day, when the sun makes his skin smoke. He calls himself “Roa” sometimes, so Avicebron takes to calling him by that name. True enough, he knows secrets the poet has never heard before, and soon the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit together. He envisions it as a great cosmic tree, each branch a aspect of the greater universe, and of humanity. But-- there is still something missing. Still, he feels they are close to a breakthrough. Some overlooked truth that proves to be the final piece. The poet isn’t used to working with another person, but Roa is a pleasant enough collaborator, even if Avicebron must on occasion avert his gaze from the bloodstains on his shirt, from the people who go missing. It’s of no concern to him what happens to those humans, the mysteries that the vampire reveals of greater import to his dream than those lives. Even if he finds the death of innocent men and women intolerable-- their lives are meaningless in their imperfection, so he will tolerate it, even if it makes him sick to the stomach. But-- it discomforts him to be so confronted with the raw reminder of their deaths, all the same. Still, Roa is wise enough not to do anything that could bring undue attention to the name of Solomon Ibn Gabirol-- no bodies are brought home, no trail is left. It is as if an invisible hand is tearing those lives away from the world.

It is heresy to him, to know that such creatures live in the shadow of humanity, at once superior beings and the foulest of monsters. But all the same, the physiology of the Dead Apostle fascinates him. There is no degradation that cannot be cured with a draft of human blood, no injury too severe to regenerate. When the moon is at its strongest, so too is Roa-- his mind sharper, his movements almost imperceptible when he wants them to be. Progress is faster on those nights, as more and more knowledge and theory coalesces into new magics. He has his golems do all the busywork of maintaining his home, and spends his every waking hour in the workshop. It’s not that this is his passion-- rather, it is the first step towards it. Roa, for his part, just seems to like talking to the poet, as if something about him amuses him.

One day, he asks Avicebron a question that would frustrate him, ordinarily.

“So, why do you wear that mask?”

There are many answers, though he rarely bothers to use any of them. He wonders if the vampire would even understand, how the affliction that ails him has made him the pariah who hides alone in his workshop, away from the eyes of the waking world. Such an existence is only natural for the bloodsuckers, after all.

“...A skin condition. It leaves me frail, and my body is unsightly. The face behind this mask is not worth showing other humans.”

Roa simply clucks his tongue, as if dissatisfied.

“...How typical of humans. Well, it’s no matter. After all, all humans are ugly to someone like me, no matter what rot afflicts them, or what blessings protect them. No, in the first place, you’re different. No matter how I look at it, you’re already something closer to a monster than a human. There’s beauty in that, so your condition shouldn’t matter. If it’s a problem for your dream, then just replace what’s damaged.”

Avicebron is the kind of person that loves humanity, but hates humans. So, if his dream is the salvation of humanity, it doesn’t matter how human he is at the end of it. In the first place, his dream is of something much bigger than any individual human, even himself. So, when Roa wanders in next morning, fresh blood still wet on his lips, he finds Avicebron just as he has removed his right leg, every other limb already replaced with a replacement crafted from the same materials as his golems.

“It was simple, really. The weakness in my arms was troublesome, so I replaced them with something stronger.”

He says something as inhuman as that, even as his body still shakes from the memory of the saw biting through bone. Once the last limb has been replaced, he stands experimentally, bladed legs unsteady at first but soon proving to be far stronger, more balanced than the disease-ravaged legs he used to have. Still, his head and his torso-- those still remain. Even if this condition is nothing more than a curse, a blight that has brought him misery-- he can’t get rid of it all, and he doesn’t want to. That curse is part of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, and despite everything, he can’t bring himself to discard every scrap of humanity he has left. He fears he will lose sight of his dream if there is no part of what he is trying to save left in him.

Throughout it all, Roa only watches without comment, with the eyes of someone watching his charge putting everything he has taught them to use with aplomb, and a smile on his face. Ultimately, the vampire knows his dream is different to that of the poet-- he dreams of “eternity”, of an existence that cannot be extinguished, while Avicebron dreams of “regression”, of an perfect, primordial existence. He wonders if their paths are that different, if the secret to one lies in the other. The act of replacing one’s own limbs with stronger artificial replacements-- that is an act that pursues eternity, isn’t it? Replace the failing with the new, in service of continuation. It reminds him of what happened to him-- the transformation into a Dead Apostle is also fundamentally an act of continuation. Still, he knows their paths will diverge soon, just as their dreams do. That’s fine. This cooperation was always going to be a momentary distraction for him-- but it has created something curious, and he had watched the development of an interesting existence-- it’s almost unheard of, for someone other than her to hold his attention for so long. Still, he will return to the hunt soon enough. Their work is close to done, after all.

 

\---

 

The vampire speaks to Avicebron of the woman he thinks often of, sometimes. From the way he describes her-- he wonders if perhaps she is something close to the primordial man he seeks himself. It’s curious, though. He can only see the inhuman in his collaborator, but there is just a spark of the human when he talks about her. Even Avicebron, who has never known of love, can tell that what the vampire feels for her is something like it, but he can also tell that it is a fundamentally warped affection. Well, even if it’s a human emotion, he’s not surprised that a monstrous mind can turn it into a monstrous desire. He holds his tongue about it, of course. He understands enough about Roa to know that he would not appreciate the implication that he might still hold that human part of him somewhere. Still, he would like to meet this woman someday. He wonders if she could truly be the perfect existence he seeks, or if it is perfect only to Roa.

His own dream is discussed sometimes, of course. They are close to the end of their work on the theory, now named Kabbalah, and Roa is curious as to what he will do next. Even with that curiosity, the vampire can’t help but sneer when he talks of Adam, of the primordial man.

“What’s the value in saving humanity? Regressing to those days won’t help stave off the things that will destroy them.”

\--He disagrees, of course. He wonders how Roa’s own disposition plays into the discipline they have created. The Sefirot is the tree of humanity, but if Roa is an existence that lives in humanity’s shadow, then the secrets he has contributed-- can they be part of humanity’s foundation? Or are they more like-- something else? Something in his mind ignites. A shadow, the monster to the human. What Roa has told him is the shadow of the tree, and that shadow must too exist in thaumaturgy. He names it Qliphoth, the “Husk” of the tree, empty of humanity and yet crucial all the same.

Roa is gone the next night, and he never returns-- he found the scent of what he was hunting, perhaps, or he knew that Avicebron had made the final discovery. No matter. Avicebron will not forget the man’s contributions, nor what he has taught him about the nature of humans, and of monsters.

\--Yes. Humanity is beautiful, but humans are ugly. But, isn’t that why his dream is important? With Adam, with Eden, he will unify the image of humans with the concept of humanity. The primordial man-- the salvation of humanity is in that perfected existence. If becoming a monster is what is needed to realise that dream, then he’ll become the foulest monster in all the world with no complaints. After all-- was he ever really human? No, he thinks Roa was right-- even if his body is that of a human, Solomon Ibn Gabirol was a monster all along.


End file.
